Service manual
How
The
Air
Bag
System
Works
Where
is
the
air bag?
The driver’s air bag is
in
the middle
of
the steering
wheel.
When
is
an
air
bag
expected
to
inflate?
The air bag is designed to inflate
,in
moderate to severe
frontal or near-fontal crashes. The air bag
will
only
inflate if the velocity of the impact is above the designed
threshold level. When impacting straight into a wall that
does not’move or deform, the threshold level for most
GM
vehicles is between
9
and
14
mph. However, this
velocity threshold depends
on
the vehicle design
and
may be several miles-per-hour faster or slower.
In
addition, this threshold velocity
will
be considerably
higher
if
the vehicle strikes an object such as a parked
car which will move and defonn
on
impact. The air bag
is also not designed to inflate in rollovers, side impacts,
or rear impacts where the inflation would provide no
occupant protection benefit.
In
any particular crash, the determination of-whether the
air bag should have inflated cannot be based solely on
the level
of
damage
on
the vehicle(s). Inflation
i,s
determined by the angle
of
the impact and the vehicle’s
deceleration,
of
which vehicle damage
is
only
one
indication. Repair cost
is
not a good indicator
of
whether an air bag should have deployed.
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